Benefits system hit by IT chaos (Microsoft and EDS)

[starroute]

Total meltdown of the British pension system . . .

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0,11026,1360163,00.html

Pension and benefit payments face disruption after what is being described as the biggest computer crash in government history left as many as 80,000 civil servants staring at blank screens and reverting to writing out giro cheques by hand in the latest blow to a hi-tech Whitehall revolution.

<snip>

Alan Johnson, the work and pensions secretary, has ordered an internal inquiry into the role of Microsoft and the American contractors EDS, who run the ministry's network as part of a £2bn information technology deal.

The disruption is the latest in a line of government technology failures and follows last week's resignation of the head of the Child Support Agency, part of Mr Johnson's empire, after the disastrous introduction of an EDS system contributed to only one in eight parents receiving the correct amount.

<snip>

A routine software upgrade on a small number of PCs last weekend is believed to have gone disastrously wrong when an incompatible system was downloaded on to the whole network.

[Deja Q]

1. ROTFLMAO. Get Linux and save some grief (and a lot of money too)

The sad part is, that wasn't even done by illegal hackers.

[The Zanti Regent]

6. OR, Buy Macs.

They don't crash like Microshit's Piece O Crap!

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

2. Microsoft SMS.

What a lovely tool. Not.

[dkofos]

3. You get what you pay for.

How many jobs has EDS sent to India??
And Microsoft too.

:mad: :mad:

[notadmblnd]

4. EDS has cut back and off shored

so much that they really have very few competent people left. Those who are still at EDS are so overworked it isn't funny. EDS used to be a great company to work for but the systematic process of downsizing over the last few years has crippled them to the point that I don't think they'll exist in another 5 years. I got so tired of worrying about having a job every 4 months and the increasing workload that I finally told them to cut me. Of course they obliged. I still don't know if I made the right decision, but so far the benefits of not working there have outweighed the benefits of working there.

[ixion]

5. rofl... that's what they get for going with MS

fools...

This program has performed an illegal action, and the government will be shut down. :evilgrin:

[Pithy Cherub]

7. Microsoft: Software humiliation!

An EDS LOL! nothing like this to get others rushing to buy your offshore sevices...

[UncleSepp]

8. Sounds to me like a lack of following instructions

If these people installed a service pack or update without testing it first on each of the configurations in use, that would be a violation of best practices. It is the operations department's job to test, test, test before rolling something like that out. Sounds like someone screwed up and is trying to blame Microsoft for it. That's like trying to blame the company that made your table saw if you don't follow safety procedures and end up cutting your finger off.

Come on, is this DU or slashdot?

[Anakin Skywalker]

9. What's Wrong with SlashDot?

They are the techies. And even they don't like Micro$uck.

http://www.microsuck.com

[fedsron2us]

10. This sounds like the mother of all screw ups

According to one article in the British press a leaked government memo stated that - "At this point there is no known solution". I wonder if the defective software rollout has damaged the 60,000 PCs so badly that they cannot be booted up for a fix to be applied remotely. This could mean every machine will have to be manually repaired locally, something that would require a massive effort.

http://portal.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/11/26/ucomputer.xml&sSheet=/portal/2004/11/26/ixportaltop.html

I do feel a bit of sympathy for the poor old sysadmin. Apparently, he was only meant to install the XP upgrade to a few PCs for testing. Unfortunately, it seems he selected the wrong option and instead distributed it to the Windows 2000 desktops throughout the DWP. It is a story he will be able to dine out upon for years.

The sad part about the whole debacle is that most of the Department of Work and Pensions processing is done on mainframe applications so I expect many of the PCs are running 3270 emulators and run as little more than dumb terminals. Apart from e-mail, some word processing and a web browser for accessing the departmental intranet it is likely that most of the other MS applications are hardly used. Unfortunately, politicians and civil servants appear all to vulnerable to the siren voices of their IT suppliers who tell them that they must be running the latest and most expensive software. I suspect that British taxpayers do not care whether the system runs on old mainframe green screen architecture or the latest web application just so long as their pension is calculated correctly and paid on time.

on edit - You have to admire the chutzpah of the UK government spokesman who claimed the main benefits systems were not affected but admitted, "The difficulty has been accessing those systems from the network of computers on people's desks." This is a bit like someone claiming that when the Eastern seaboard of the US was hit by massive black outs that there was no problem because the power stations were still operating and the only inconvenience was that the electricity had been cut off.

[Ima]

11. Maybe now the Britts

will understand why we hate Microsoft/Gates.